Thirty-One
The seven men spread out across the wide main street of town. Puma, Mustang, Wildcat, Big Bob, Stumpy, Dan, and finally Falcon. Upon spotting the seven men, the huge gathering of hired guns reined up at the edge of town and let the dust settle and their horses blow.
“Must be fifty of 'em, at least,” Stumpy said. “And another bunch comin' in behind that one.”
“Yeah, but it's smaller,” Big Bob called. “That'll be the bunch that Noonan and Stegman will be ridin' with.”
“Get ready,” Falcon called, just loud enough for his men to hear. “They're going to be coming up the street straight at us in a few seconds.”
“Just like I figured they would,” Dan said.
“Yep,” Mustang said. “You called this 'un right, Dan.”
“You boys all know what to do,” Falcon said. “Soon as we empty the lead saddles, head for cover.”
“You watch your butt, Falcon,” Big Bob called.
“Good luck, boys,” Falcon replied.
With a shout of defiance, the mounted mob put the spurs to their horses and lunged forward, galloping up the street toward the thin line of men. When they got within good pistol range, seven men each jerked two six-guns from leather and let them bang just as fast as they could cock and fire.
Twenty saddles were emptied in a matter of seconds. Horses were rearing up and bucking and screaming in fright. Wounded men were crawling around in the dirt of the street, most of them getting trampled on by the hooves of the horses that had been galloping directly behind them.
When the dust settled, Falcon and the mountain men were nowhere in sight and the horsemen were trapped in the center of the street.
Falcon and three of his men opened up from one side of the street, while the three other mountain men opened up from the other. More saddles were emptied and horses were going crazy from the smell of blood and the roar of gunfire and the screaming of the wounded gunhands.
Less than half of those who had arrogantly charged Falcon and his friends managed to get their horses turned around and gallop back out of town, and many of them were wounded. The street was filled with the dead, dying, and badly wounded.
Falcon and his men had not suffered even the tiniest of scratches.
Stegman was horrified at the carnage he was witnessing in the street, but Noonan was outraged. “Dismount!” he roared at his men. “Dismount and go after those bastards on foot and kill them. Do it! All of you.”
A mob of hired guns spread out and began slowly working their way up both sides of the street, front and back of the businesses. There were Noonan and Stegman brothers and kids of the brothers and cousins and uncles and so forth. For many of them, this would be the last fight: Their blood would stain the streets and alleys and boardwalks and businesses of the small western town in Wyoming.
“Just stay inside the church,” John Bailey told the people gathered for the church social. “Noonan and Stegman's men will not harm you. Preacher, get your choir together and give us some songs, will you?”
“My pleasure, sir,” Reverend Watkins said. “Come, sisters, let us raise our voices in song while the Philistines spill their blood in the streets.”
Falcon came up face-to-face with a bearded gunhand and shot him twice just as Big Bob lined up a paid gunny in his sights and blew him to hell. Dan Carson stood in the doorway of a back door and waited until a gunslick walked up ... then he shot him in the head. Mustang stepped out of a building and blew one of the Noonan cousins out of one boot. The man was dead before he stretched out on the ground for the last time.
Puma called out to a gunslick, “Hey, you ugly bastard! Behind you.”
The man whirled around and Puma gave him two .45 rounds in the chest.
Wildcat emptied one pistol into a knot of hired guns and sent two to the ground, mortally wounded. The other three jumped for cover and scrambled out of sight.
Stumpy leveled both pistols at several men who were trying to slip out the back of the building, and let his six-shooters bang. When the smoke cleared, two men were dead and the third was crawling away, out of the fight.
Suddenly there was a woman's scream: a terrible scream that cut the afternoon air. But after a few seconds, Falcon decided it wasn't a woman's scream; it was slightly off in timbre. A man staggered out from between two buildings, half his face gone and blood dripping from the terrible wound. The man tried to speak, but no words would come from his mouth.
“Jenny got him,” Puma called. “I told y'all she was close by.”
The man with half his face missing screamed in pain and then collapsed in the middle of the street and lay still.
“What the hell happened to Dick?” someone called. “I didn't hear no gunshot.”
“I don't know,” a man called in reply. “But half his face is missin'.”
A shot cut the afternoon and a gunslick grunted and took a header off the hotel roof. He smashed through the awning, bounced on the boardwalk, and lay still.
“Falcon MacCallister, you son of a bitch!” Nance Noonan shouted.
Falcon did not reply. He stayed between two buildings, pressed up into a doorway.
“You've played hell, for a fact,” Nance shouted. “But this day ain't over.”
For a fact,
Falcon thought.
And if you had any sense, you'd pull up stakes and ride on out to another part of the country.
Then Nance Noonan signed his death warrant when he shouted, “I know you got kids, Falcon. And I know where they are down in Colorado. I'll kill them, MacCallister. I'll make certain none of your stinkin' offspring lives. They're dead, MacCallister. You hear me? Your kids is
dead!”
Falcon felt an icy sensation wash over him. It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on him. He did not know it, but he was smiling; but the smile was awful to behold. It was a curving of the lips that came straight from Hell.
“You're dead, Noonan,” Falcon muttered softly, only the faint breeze hearing his words. “You're a walking-around dead man. No matter where you go, I'll find you and kill you.”
A hired gun suddenly left cover and tried to make the side door to the general store. The guns of three mountain men barked and the man stumbled and went down to his knees. He stayed in that position for a few seconds, then toppled over and lay still in the mouth of the alley.
“I'm done, MacCallister!” a man called. “I'm out of here. I'm holsterin' my guns and gettin' my horse and ridin' out. Don't shoot. You hear me?”
Falcon maintained his silence.
“Me, too,” another man shouted. “This is crazy. I ain't gonna die for no damn Noonan. I'm joinin' Pete and ridin' out. Don't shoot.”
“You yellow-bellied bastards!” Nance shouted. “I've been payin' you top wages for months and now you turn yeller on me. You stand and fight, you scum.”
“You go to hell, Noonan,” another voice sprang out of an alleyway. “It's time, past time, you understood that you ain't gonna win this fight. It's over, man. And I ain't havin' no part of killin' nobody's kids.”
“That goes double for me,” yet another voice was added to the quitting voices. “I'm done here. MacCallister, my guns is in leather. I'm through. I'm headin' out the back alley and ridin' clear of this town. You understand?”
“Git gone then,” Big Bob's voice shouted. “All of you who want to live, ride out and don't never come back to this part of the country. If I see any of you again, I'll kill you on the spot. Ride out and don't come back. Hold your fire, boys. Let them ride clear.”
Nance cussed all those who gathered up their horses, swung into the saddles, and rode out. “You sorry bunch of yeller coyotes!” he shouted, his voice filled with rage. “You no-good scummy bastards. Take a man's money and then turn yeller on him. Goddamm you all to hell.”
One of the men who had made up his mind to ride out told Nance how and where he could shove his wordsâsideways. Nance screamed his anger at the departing gunhands.
“How about it, Nance?” Falcon finally broke his silence. “You and me in the street. You have the nerve to face me man-to-man, you sorry piece of crap?”
There was no reply.
Falcon called again for Nance to meet him in the street. Nance made no reply to the deadly invitation.
“We're out of here, MacCallister,” yet another voice filled the late-afternoon air. “We're done with this fight. They's five of us ridin' out. Hold your fire.”
“Ten of us,” another voice shouted. “That about does it, MacCallister. Tell your boys it's all over. We're through and done with it.”
“Where's Nance?” Falcon shouted.
“He rode out a few minutes ago. He quit. Him and all his brothers and other kin with him. We ain't stayin' here and takin' no lead for him.”
“Ride out then,” Big Bob called. “But don't none of you never come back. You're dead if you do. You understand?”
“We understand. You've seen the last of us.”
“Git gone, then!”
After a moment, Falcon yelled, “Where's Stegman?”
“Gone,” Stumpy called. “I seen him ride out 'fore any of the others left.”
“Anybody know where the doc is?”
“At the church, I think,” Puma called. “I'm closest. I'll go get him.”
“Take that damn cat of yours with you,” Big Bob called.
“She's back in the hills,” Puma shouted. “I seen her hightailin' it after that no-'count scared her and she had to defend herself. Poor baby's scared to death, probably.”
Big Bob had nothing to add to that, but Falcon could not help but smile as he imagined the big man muttering about Puma Parley's
poor baby.
“I'll have to love on her and pet her for a couple of days to get her calmed down,” Puma added.
“Oh, shut up about that damn beast of yours and go get the doc!” Big Bob yelled.
“You just don't appreciate God's creatures, Bob,” Puma called. “They're wonderful critters.”
“Go git the damn doc!”
“All right, all right. Keep your pants on, Bob. I'm a-goin'.”
John Bailey and several other men came walking cautiously from the church to the main street, rifles at the ready. But they didn't need weapons. The fight was over. It had not lasted long, but it had been brutal and bloody. Twenty-eight hired guns were dead or close to death, another fifteen had suffered various wounds, most of the dead and wounded sprawled in the dirt of the town's main street.
“Good Lord!” the doctor blurted, upon sighting the carnage.
“Is it over here?” Puma asked.
“It's over,” Miles Gilman said. “When the news of this spreads, Noonan and Stegman won't be able to hire any guns. Anyone with a gun for hire will stay far away from this part of the country. Count on that.”
“I'm gone then,” Puma said, walking up leading his horse. “I got to go find my Jenny. Poor thing's scared and alone up yonder in the hills.”
“I owe you money, Puma,” John said.
“Naw. Last week was payday and I ain't done nothin' the past week. We're even. See you, boys.”
And with that, the mountain man was gone, swinging into the saddle and riding out without looking back.
“That's his way,” Dan Carson said. “I been knowin' him for years and he always leaves out the same way. Just saddles up and goes, usually without so much as a fare-thee-well.”
“I hope Jenny's all right,” Wildcat said.
Big Bob rolled his eyes and shook his head.
“You folks go on and have your social,” Falcon told the local men. “Me and the boys will help the doc and the undertaker get all this cleared up.”
Miles Gilman and John Bailey started to protest and Falcon waved them silent. “Go on back to your womenfolk. Before some of them wander down here and see all this bloody mess.”
“You got a point there, Falcon,” Miles said. “All right. Come on, John. The biddin' on them box suppers is gonna be startin' 'fore long. And I don't want no one else to get what Mrs. Carter fixed.”
Smiling, the two men walked away from the slaughter in the main street.
The bodies of the dead were carried off for a quick burial. The town's grave diggers would be working through the night. The wounded were taken to the doc's office, with most of those suffering from less serious wounds dumped on the boardwalk in front of the office. The doctor would get to them when he could.
Big Bob laid down the law to the less seriously wounded men. “Soon as you yahoos is able to ride, and that better be within a few hours, you plant your butt in the saddle and git gone from this town. I don't never want to see none of you again.”
“You don't have to worry about that,” a man with a bloody bandage around the upper part of his right arm said. “Once I git gone, I'll stay gone.”
“I hope so,” Big Bob told him.
Falcon walked up, leading his horse. “Where are you off to?” Mustang asked.
“I got things to settle with Nance Noonan,” Falcon told him. He swung into the saddle. “He made his brags about what he was going to do. I aim to see that he doesn't do them.”
“I'll get my hoss and go with you.”
“No, boys. You stay here until John Bailey gets him a few permanent hands hired.”
Wildcat noticed then that Falcon had tied him a bedroll behind the saddle and his saddlebags were bulging with supplies.
“Dean opened the general store for me,” Falcon said. “And I stocked up with what I'll need on the trail. I met with Willard and he knows what to do with my money.”